Injury claim raises cash, doubts

Woman is paid $480,000, now faces larceny charge

Kenneth C. Crowe II, Times Union

By Kenneth C. Crowe II and Matthew Hamilton

Updated 10:14 pm, Friday, July 19, 2013

Audrea Gause, 26, of 245 Ninth St., Troy, is led into Troy City Court on Friday, July 19, 2013, to face charges for being a fugitive from justice. Authorities in Massachusetts say Gause faked medical records to be paid $480,000 from the One Fund Boston, the charity set up for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. (Bob Gardininer / Times Union archive)

Audrea Gause, 26, of 245 Ninth St., Troy, is led into Troy City...

Audrea Gause, 26, of 245 Ninth St., Troy, is arraigned by City Court Judge Christopher Maier on a charge of being a fugitive from justice. Authorities in Massachusetts say Gause faked medical records to be paid $480,000 from the One Fund Boston, the charity set up for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. (Bob Gardininer / Times Union)

Audrea Gause, 26, of 245 Ninth St., Troy, is arraigned by City...

Police search a car outside the 245 Ninth St., Troy, home of a woman police said is expected to face charges for allegedly defrauding $400,000 from a fund for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. (Matt Hamilton / Times Union)

Police search a car outside the 245 Ninth St., Troy, home of a...

Residence of Audrea Gause, who was arraigned Friday afternoon on accusations she cheated $400,000 from a charity set up for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, on Friday, July 19, 2013, in Troy, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union archive)

Residence of Audrea Gause, who was arraigned Friday afternoon on...

Residence of Audrea Gause, who was arraigned Friday afternoon on accusations she cheated $400,000 from a charity set up for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, on Friday, July 19, 2013, in Troy, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union archive)

A city woman who is known to local police for forging checks for small amounts of cash received $480,000 from a Boston charity after she falsely claimed she was hospitalized for a traumatic brain injury from the Boston Marathon bombing, police said Friday.

On June 28, Gause, 26, was approved to receive $480,000. The money was deposited on July 1 in an account she opened at a SEFCU branch in Albany, said Capt. John Cooney, a Troy police spokesman.

Within days, Cooney said, Gause put a $377,500 deposit down with Marini Builders on a dream home she wanted to design and have built in Clifton Park.

On Friday, Gause was arraigned on a fugitive from justice charge as police searched her rented home at 245 Ninth St. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a Friday afternoon teleconference that Gause will be charged with larceny over $250,000 in Massachusetts.

Gause claimed she was hospitalized at Boston Medical Center for two days after the April 15 bombing, according Coakley's office. Gause also said she underwent 10 days of subsequent treatment at Albany Medical Center Hospital.

"The claim allegedly said that Gause sustained a brain injury from the Boston Marathon bombing and experienced long-term memory loss, impaired speech, and loss of some motor function that would require future surgery," according to Coakley's office.

An investigation found that she wasn't in Boston during the marathon, at the Boston hospital after the bombing or treated at Albany Med.

Gause was treated for a fall at Boston Medical Center, which provided her with the paperwork necessary to create the documents to apply for The One Fund Boston assistance, Cooney said.

At the end of her application, she wrote, "I promise to keep my faith," Cooney said.

Gause was initially stymied in an effort to withdraw all of the money but eventually got the $377,500 from the account, Cooney said. She carried the money in an envelope when she met with Marini Brothers representatives, he said.

Detectives are interviewing Gause's boyfriend, who police said did not receive money or gifts from Gause.

Gause had been arrested previously in connection with forging checks and other minor crimes in the city, Cooney said.

Gause wrote about the money on her Facebook account, Cooney said. But in the past week, Massachusetts authorities received tips that Gause wasn't in Boston on the day of the bombing and began an investigation that they said unraveled the scheme.

Massachusetts State Police and the state's attorney general opened their probe on July 12 and on July 18 were in Troy working with local detectives. Albany police also participated. Gause was arrested on Eighth Street between Rensselaer and Hoosick streets at 12:38 p.m. Friday.

Gause, who said she is unemployed and owns only a 2007 GMC sport utility vehicle, was arraigned before City Court Judge Christopher Maier and sent to Rensselaer County Jail without bail as Massachusetts investigators watched. She's due back in court on Tuesday to see if she will waive extradition to Massachusetts.

"We allege that this defendant defrauded The One Fund Boston of $480,000," Coakley said in statement. "By doing this, she was stealing money from the real victims of the Marathon bombing, and from the people who gave so generously to help them."

Police searched a car outside the Ninth Street home where authorities said Gause had been living.

Roughly 10 law enforcement officials, ranging from plainclothes officers with silver badges hanging from their necks to uniformed Troy police officers, were at Gause's red-brick apartment building on Friday afternoon.

Residents across the street said they knew little about their neighbor.

"She didn't really talk to nobody," said one neighbor, who asked not to be identified. "She would just say 'hi' and 'bye' then go back in the house."

This is the second arrest Coakley's office has made in connection with attempted fraud of The One Fund. Earlier this month, a Boston man was charged with submitting a fraudulent $2 million claim on behalf of his aunt.

Coakley said one or two other people may have been involved in Gause's alleged scheme.

"It is terrible to think that people would compound the Marathon tragedy by stealing money from survivors, but I am grateful we have such excellent partners in the attorney general, in law enforcement, in the One Fund, and in a watchful public," Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino said in a statement released by the AG's office.

Coakley said her office is looking into all relief applications received by the One Fund Boston. She said investigators have not finished poring over the documents.